by Trudi Jaye
Running back out into the anteroom and through the pawn store, we emerge into the daylight outside. The rain has stopped and now the sun is shining over everything, making it sparkle with reflected light.
I stop and suck in a deep breath of fresh air. The little blue bottle feels heavy in my pocket.
“We need to get the hell out of here before someone sees us.” Seth pulls on my hand.
I nod and take another deep breath. Then I let him drag me back to the small stolen car. He unlocks my door without a word and helps me into the passenger seat.
We’re in the car and driving away from Quincy before he speaks again.
“Did you get what you came for?” He’s eyeing the bloodied wooden box that I have clutched to my chest.
I nod.
“Tell me what happened in there.”
I shake my head. “Drive. Just drive,” I whisper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We’ve been driving for an hour before I feel okay enough to whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Seth glances at me, and then back at the road. He doesn’t say anything for a while. Then: “For what?”
“For leaving you like that. It was dumb.”
“Why did you do it?”
I shrug. “You were planning to kidnap me. Force me to go with you.”
Seth shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t. I didn’t agree, but I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
I try to think back, to remember why I was so certain. “Then why did you get up? Why were you standing over me?”
A red flush works its way over Seth’s face. “I wasn’t going to hurt you. I just couldn’t sleep.” He pauses. “Did you plan it with Amos? Hitting me over the head?”
I shake my head, too embarrassed by the idea that I trusted Amos to speak.
“When did you find out he had double-crossed us?” he asks quietly.
“Not until he pulled the gun on me,” I say, gazing out the window. “Even then, I thought I could convince him to change his mind.”
“Why did he do it? Did he say?” Seth asks softly.
I hesitate. I’m convinced Amos was feeling hurt and rejected when he phoned his father, which made him vulnerable to Vincent’s persuasion. He must have done it when we stopped to switch drivers on the way to Quincy. But is that really why he turned on me? Or is it because of the bigger picture? Amos grew up with the Earthbound, he believes in what they’re doing. Perhaps this was always the way it was going to end, no matter what Amos thought when he first helped me.
I mull over what Vincent told Amos. Was it true? I didn’t think so when Amos first said the words, but now... Too many strange things are happening around me.
I bite my lip, still not sure what to say. Do I even want Seth to know everything? The one thing I learned from Amos is that I shouldn’t trust anyone. But Seth... He’s stuck with me through all of this. He’s never complained about being on the run, getting shot, almost being killed; he’s never given up on me. I take a breath. “He said the furnace they put me in at the Earthbound headquarters was really hot. Far too hot for a normal supernatural to survive. He still thinks I’m a dragon.” I haven’t said those words out loud before, and a shiver of emotion rolls down my body.
“Wait. What? They put you in a furnace?” Seth puts his foot on the brake and skids to a stop on the side of the narrow country road we’re driving along.
My hands are clenched in my lap. I haven’t told him what they did to me, and the words flow out, difficult at first, but soon tripping over themselves. I tell him everything. As I talk, Seth’s expression tightens with anger.
When I’m finished, he doesn’t speak for a while, just leans his arms on the steering wheel and stares out the rain-spattered windscreen. “You can trust me,” he says eventually, turning his head to face me. He pauses and a small half-smile appears. “I know that’s what dodgy used car salesmen say, but you really can. I’m not going to let anything else bad happen to you.”
It’s hard to breathe all of a sudden, and a lump finds its way up my throat. “Thanks,” I whisper. He doesn’t have the power to promise that I won’t get hurt, but I appreciate the sentiment. He’s all I’ve got and I need to trust him.
An hour later we stop and dump the stolen car, switching it out for a small red rental car that shudders whenever it goes too fast. Even though I try to convince him not to, Seth buys another cell phone.
“We’ll need it to contact your father when we get to New York,” he says.
I can’t think of an argument against that and just watch as he buys the cheapest one he can find.
By the time we get to our next motel in Eddyville, a tiny town about five hours’ drive south of Quincy and hidden in the middle of the Shawnee National Forest, I’ve told Seth everything that happened in Quincy as well. We’re sitting on the bed in the tiny room, eating chips and chocolate bars from the vending machine.
“I think there’s a chance you might actually be a dragon, Mei.”
A chip goes down the wrong way, and I can’t breathe. I cough up the sharp pieces of potato and try not to choke, while Seth thumps me on the back. My eyes are watering, and I don’t know if I’m crying or if it’s a reaction to choking. I wipe the moisture away and lean back against the rickety headboard, my shoulder touching Seth’s.
“I know,” I whisper. I let the shivers take me for a second, their uncontrollable nature helping push aside the fear that’s hovering over me.
“It’s not such a bad thing, you know.”
“It seems like a terrible thing.” I look up into his eyes. “They’ll hunt me for my whole life. I’ll never have any peace.”
Seth shakes his head. “You can go away, find somewhere safe. They can’t look everywhere.”
I sniff sadly. I’ve already lived that life. “There are always people willing to give you up. Whether it’s for the money, or because they’re afraid, or even just angry about some perceived wrong.”
He’s silent for a moment. “Your father will know what we should do.”
I move my legs restlessly. The closer we get to New York, the more I begin to doubt my father. I try to imagine him helping us for anything other than his own benefit and I struggle. He’s never shown an interest in me before. Whether it’s because I’m a decoy dragon and not really his child, or if he’s just not concerned with his own daughter—either way it doesn’t show him in a good light. “I don’t know...”
“What can we do, except stick to our original plan? Find your father, get him to tell us the whole story. Then you can decide what to do from there.”
“Amos knows where we’re going.” I remind him. “They’ll be chasing us every step of the way. And officially, the SIG and the Earthbound have an agreement. They’re working together, on the same side.”
“We’ll be careful. And we’ll find a way to meet with your father that they won’t expect.”
“I guess.” I pause, thoughts smashing around inside my head. Who to trust, what to do. I wasn’t sure about any of it. I put my hand to the little blue bottle that I’ve tied to string and hung around my neck. It feels warm against my collarbone. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with my demon either, but I’m not going to let him out of my sight until I can figure it out. Yet another problem to sort out.
“Before we decide, I think we should open the box,” says Seth.
We both look to where it’s sitting in the corner of the room, next to the television. After the experience at the pawn shop, I couldn’t bring myself to open it in the car. It seems like the ideal thing to do right now, though.
Seth stands up and grabs the box, handing it to me where I sit on the bed. I sit up straighter, leaning over the box, tracing my finger over the intricate patterns. “Do they mean anything to you? The patterns?”
Seth shakes his head. “No. They seem... familiar. But I don’t know what they mean.”
I turn the box so the lid and its lock are facing me. The lock is built into the box, a circle t
hat can be moved around with a strange mix of numbers and letters. I turn it gingerly, and every time it turns to a new digit, it clicks loudly.
“Do you know the code?” Seth leans in.
I shake my head. Jeff wouldn’t do something as simple as leave me the damn code. It’s going to require some quick thinking on my part to unlock the box. Smashing it open is also a bad idea; I’m pretty sure Jeff would have booby-trapped it.
Narrowing my eyes, I look at the numbers and letters. A date? A birthday? No, too obvious.
What about an address? I try the address of Si’s hideaway, but only get five digits in before the box starts to hum angrily at me. “Guess not,” I mutter to myself.
“What about your birthday?” Seth suggests.
I glare at him out of the corner of my eye, but put the date in anyway, just to prove I know what I’m doing. The box is humming like an angry buzzy bee who’s just seen someone cutting down all his trees. “Nope,” I say.
Coordinates to somewhere? I try to think of some of the places we’ve been more than once. Jeff always made me memorize the coordinates of places, and this seems like a good reason for that.
I try a couple of the ones I know off the top of my head. I even try a couple of obscure ones. The box just jumps a little at us and continues to hum angrily.
“Is there a time limit on this, do you think?” Seth asks nervously. “A self-destruct sequence if you put too many numbers in?”
I shrug, unable to deny that it would fit with Jeff to have something like that in the locking mechanism. “If there is, we need to hurry.” I pause, tapping one finger against my lips. “What do you know about the dragons? Was there somewhere they used to live or hangout more than others?”
Seth shrugs. “Maybe their hatching grounds? Or where the young dragons used to live.”
A little blip of excitement knocks about in my chest. “Where would that be?”
Seth picks up his cell phone and starts to search. I wait impatiently, trying not to fidget while he frowns at his screen. As I watch him, I realize he’s logging into his cloud storage portal at the SIG. “Seth, your phone. They can find us through your phone if you log on.”
He glances up at me and shakes his head. “Not the Earthbound. The SIG phone networks are secured against outside infringement.”
“But the SIG can find us.”
He shrugs. “Sure. But would that be so bad? We’re heading in that direction anyway.”
I open my mouth to disagree, but find I can’t. Jeff and Si taught me to take care of myself and stay off the grid. But there’s such a thing as being too paranoid. The SIG aren’t the enemy, are they?
“Here it is! I knew I’d filed it. An old historic site in Russia. Home of the main dragon hatching grounds. Not very well preserved these days, but here are the coordinates. Give it a go.”
I slowly press the coordinates into the front of the box. The angry buzzing starts to diminish straight away, and by the time I’ve entered the last number and pressed the enter key, I know it’s the right code. The box is humming gently in a satisfied tone that sends feelings of peace and calm through my body.
Turning the lock in the middle, I hear it click, and the lid slowly opens.
Holding my breath, I peer inside. All I can see at first are papers, lots of them. Documents, photos, and even a small book. I frown, wondering how Jeff thought all this would help me. “What were you doing, Jeff?” I mutter.
I pull out a photo, and it’s of a small mountain somewhere lush with green grass and rolling pastures. I frown and turn it over.
The date is written on the back: 23 August, 1954. Ireland. Dragon site 3.
“Dragon site 3?” I say.
“Some kind of old burial sites?” Seth suggests, leaning over my shoulder to look closer at the photo.
“Who knows.” I shrug, picking up a document.
“The Supernatural Intelligence Group Dragon Sub-group,” I read out. “Formed to confirm the existence of dragons in the current century.” I scroll down the list of names in the group and find not only my father’s name, but Jeff’s as well.
It’s dated two years before I was born.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Dragons are believed to have survived into the current era by lying dormant in various locations around the world.
The notes on the documentation are at various times confusing, terrifying, and vague. “So, the SIG has been researching the possibility that dragons are not actually extinct,” I say slowly.
Seth lifts his shoulders. “Sounds like it. What made them set this up? Does it say?”
I rifle through the pages and come to an old newspaper article about earthquakes and a flood in China affecting thousands of people. One line is highlighted. “Eye witnesses said the buckling of the earth was so great, it was like the earth was rising up to the sky.”
“It seems a sketchy reason to start investigating the existence of dragons,” I say.
“Maybe someone from the agency saw something. And this is just an extension of that.”
I finger the pages, trying to get a bearing. “You know what this means, right?”
“That Jeff knew about you?”
I nod. “If I’m a dragon, Jeff knew about it. And he didn’t tell me.” I try not to feel hurt, but it’s hard. He kept me deliberately in the dark for all this time. And to what purpose? I don’t understand how my life is better because I didn’t know who and what I was earlier.
I pick up the slim book that has shifted to the bottom of the box. It’s from the supernatural publishing realms. “An Historical Glimpse at Dragons: Their Lives Through Anthropological Discovery and Eye Witness Accounts.”
“Eye witness accounts?” I mutter. “Who the hell was alive five hundred years ago?”
Seth watches me carefully. “Some of the older races. The mountains probably have old ones who have lived that long.”
I blink. Of course they do. On average, supernaturals live longer than humans. Two hundred years is a common average. So five hundred years isn’t such a stretch for some of them. It probably seems like yesterday.
I flick through the pages, stopping on one that talks about how dragons shift. “This doesn’t even make sense. They’re not telling me how to do it; they’re just describing what one person thought they saw.”
“Well, I’m sure they weren’t expecting the book to be a guide for a dragon who didn’t know how to be a dragon,” Seth says softly. I look up quickly, startled by his words.
He’s right though. I am looking through the pages hoping it will tell me what to do. And maybe give me a few pointers on what being a dragon might mean for me.
“Does it say what happens to a dragon when they turn twenty?” Seth asks.
Turning twenty and coming into your full supernatural powers can be mystical, or it can be painful, depending on the species. I thought I knew what to expect, but now I’m not so sure.
I shake my head. “I can’t see anything yet, anyway.” I’m thumbing through the pages when I come across a heading. “A baby dragon nest.”
The picture on the page shows a large nest made of sticks. Inside the nest are small baby dragons, blowing out smoke and flames. “If I’m a dragon, how come I’ve never been in the shape of a dragon?” I ask. “Shouldn’t I have shifted before now?” I’m relieved to have proof that I can’t be a dragon after all.
I glance behind me to where Seth is leaning back. He’s close over my shoulder, and turning has meant our faces are close. I feel the heat of his body warming mine. I swallow and move back slightly.
His eyes flare with emotion, and then his face is neutral again. “There’s a chance you’re not. Maybe there’s another reason you can call lightning to your hands. Maybe there are other creatures that can roar and push back a demon.”
I stare at him a moment. “Are you trying to be funny?”
He doesn’t move. “No.”
I scowl. “Name something.”
“Water demons
.” His face is so close to mine, I can see flecks of gold in his hazel eyes.
“Oh, that’s much better. I’m a demon.”
“I’m sure there are old unnamed earth elementals who can do what you’ve done.”
“Do you really think so?” I’m not sure whether to be glad. One tiny—and stupid—part of me is secretly delighted by the thought of being the only dragon in the world. The majority of me knows and understands how bad it would be. If I’m a dragon, it will make my life hell. Forever. But that tiny part of me can’t help wondering what it would be like to be a dragon. To be that special.
“Do you think I’m a dragon, Seth? Be honest.”
His face goes tight for a moment, and I can see he’s struggling with his answer. He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Everything is pointing in that direction. The Earthbound think you are. But I can’t reconcile what I know about you with the stories of the Dragon Wars. They were so brutal. The dragons didn’t care about the death and destruction they caused for humans and supernaturals.” He stares into my eyes, and I start tingling all over.
“You’re not like that, Mei. You think of other people. You care.” He reaches up and puts a hand against my face, rubbing his thumb along my cheek. He leans in and brushes his lips softly against mine, and it’s as if the air around me has suddenly disappeared.
I can’t breathe; I can’t think.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Seth pulls back and stands up. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” He wipes a hand across his mouth as if he’s trying to destroy the evidence.
“Why not?” I say.
“I’m an SIG Agent. It’s my duty to protect you. I shouldn’t be...” He waves his hand at me to indicate the kiss.
“I don’t see why not.” I fold my arms over my chest.
